


Man the walls, bare the steel

by MasterOfMyFates



Category: A Practical Guide to Evil - erraticerrata
Genre: Allegiance Swap, Alternate Universe, Evil Callow, Generation Swap, Good Praes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-07
Updated: 2019-01-07
Packaged: 2019-09-29 22:10:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17211749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MasterOfMyFates/pseuds/MasterOfMyFates
Summary: Catherine Foundling is not yet one when she is left with the Order of the Red Hand.It takes eighteen years for her Name to find her.





	Man the walls, bare the steel

* * *

 

Catherine is not yet one when she is left with the Order of the Red Hand.

The Chaptermaster in Laure is past her prime, her body ravaged more by battles than by her forty years, but she knows her duty.  She looks the child over and, not finding any obvious imperfections, sends for a squire to take charge of her. She repeats this over the coming months, uncaring of the old wounds that dog her with every step. Eventually, there are several hundred children housed and cared for in the Chapter House.

Eventually, they are at full capacity.

It is at this point that she sits the squires down and explains what they are going to do next. Some of the squires pale, their eyes going glassy; others brood, folding in on themselves. The Chaptermaster takes them aside after hours and lets them pour out their doubts, their fears, their anger - she has felt much the same in the past. But that is in the past. She _knows_ why this is necessary.

She has seen the white-cloaked killers of the Praesi, she has seen the endless numbers of Procer unleashed. She tells the squires of this – of Above’s implacable fury and Procer’s bottomless hunger; she reminds them that they are Callowan and that this war is in their blood.

The Bestowal is grim work. The particular concoction has been passed down through the centuries of the Order’s existence. It had been refined, of course, but never to the point where the mortality rate is under half of the participants. The Chaptermaster thinks there is good reason for this.

The children would drink and a little over half of them would die. But those that did not would be… different, empowered.

The Gods Below pay their debts.

It is a long price, this sacrifice, but the Order of the Red Hand is Callow’s first line of defence against foreign powers.

None of the squires shirk their duty.

By the time they are done, just over one hundred children remain.

Catherine Foundling is one of them.

 

* * *

 

She is almost ten when they send her to the Blighted Isle.

Catherine has done well in her education, though she does not know it. She believes that she is barely above average for her academic pursuits. This is true - while literate, numerate and of acceptable fluency in the Praesi tongues, there is nothing spectacular about Catherine Foundling with a quill in hand.

But there are other ways in which she is judged. Their swordmaster often applauds her killer instinct, before assigning extra drills to so that she might better her technique. It is the spymaster, however, that cements it. She assigns the novices tasks (steal this, find that, the Civil Guard have your likeness, escape the city) and although it takes years to become apparent, there is a pattern.

Catherine is not well-liked among her peers: her Deoraithe blood inevitably brings whispers of “Daoine interloper” and her utter disinterest in the concerns of her fellows holds her apart. She is outmanoeuvred in the childhood politics that permeate every novice cohort again and again, often to her detriment. But she does not repeat those mistakes. Her fear of heights is conquered so that she can run across the rooftops; she trades knife instruction with the fishermen’s children for swimming lessons. The spymaster watches as every loss refines her.

Here are three truths: the Praesi will come. The Blighted Isle must hold. Catherine Foundling has iron in her spine.

When the call comes for the novices to graduate, the Chaptermaster already has a destination in mind.

 

* * *

 

At fourteen, she makes her first kill.

The years on the Blighted Isle are kind to Catherine. It is liberating to know one’s purpose. She trains in the aspects of Order warfare. She learns to bind wounds and to grant them, to comprehend languages and to encypher them. The knights of Summerholm teach her to ride and visiting Questors teach her how to dismantle different weapon styles from all across Calernia.

But above all, she learns how to gain the grace of the Hellgods. What the ignorant call ‘fell sorceries’ are in fact merely boons, bought from the Vengeful Ones with blood. She learns to cloak herself in the shadows, how to call fear down upon her foes, how to unleash flames that burn through solid stone.

As of now, Catherine cannot call anything beyond the barest whisper of power. All she can do is produce are minor workings fuelled by her own blood. Anything weighty would require more, much more. She knows how, of course: the answer is emblazoned upon the Order’s banner.

_Strength through sacrifice._

It is tradition, that, to access more power, kills are made with a consecrated weapon, which are received in the wake of the Trial of Blades. Her cohort are tested in their fourteenth year.

The pit has long been a staple of the Order’s stronghold on the Blighted Isle. The sand-strewn ground has been watered by many types of blood, from orcs to lesser fae. Today, the opponents in the ring will have been specially chosen - it is important that the novices fight worthy opponents. They walk away from the Trial of Blades as journeymen and Those Below would frown upon the cheapening of the sacrifice.

They give her a blade beforehand. She has trained with steel before, of course, and earlier with the heavy wooden props meant to build muscle. But those all belonged to the Order. This belongs to _her_. Or it will, providing that she wins.

It is a bright spring day and the air already tastes of bloodshed when Catherine enters the pit. She draws her dagger and makes a small cut into her forearm, making sure the blood drips onto her bared sword. Salt follows blood on the steel, liquid and crystal glinting sunlight.

Her first two sets of opponents are Callowan, given the choice of the noose or the pit. Murderers, most likely. She kills them quickly and cleanly, more as a testament to the skill gap than mercy. Her veins are buzzing, limbs pulsing with the thrill of combat. She calls for the gates to be opened once more.

Her final set of opponents are Praesi. There are three of them – a pair of Taghreb swordswomen that look similar enough to be sisters and a male orc with an axe. They are unarmoured, each dressed in the same woollen tunic as she is. A distant part of her laughs at the sight of the orc in Order garments. It looks incongruous, like trying to clothe a tiger.

Catherine salutes them and _moves_.

As the corpses are dragged away and fresh sand is scattered across the floor, a cloud passes in front of the sun. Catherine looks down.

Her blade is clean.

 

* * *

 

Two years pass before she meets him.

She is assigned more tasks, just like in Laure. Some are as simple as assisting the weaponsmith with supplies, or helping the alchemists obtain ingredients. It will take her an embarrassingly long time to realise that she is being taught logistics by proxy. Sometimes though, her duties take her further afield.

It is evening, but summer has struck the City of Swans like an angry god, all roiling air and blazing light. Catherine is finished for the day. The alchemical supplies have been delivered to Liesse, along with the confidential correspondence, and she has a few days before she has to courier whatever the Liessan branch is sending back. She turns in for the night.

The journeyman assigned to guide her is unhappy. He mutters something about muddied blood when he thinks she cannot hear before guiding her to a spare bunk. She catches it anyway; the orphans in the Order have sharper senses than most. It catches her by surprise. Deoraithe are much more common in the north and any mouthy novice was soon taught a lesson on the Blighted Isle. Some of the teachers had been members of the Watch.

The journeyman stops in front of a door, pushes it open and spits out a slur before striding off down the hallway. Catherine’s fingers clench, but she lets it go. She is on her own here.

The room is empty, save for a boy sitting on the next bed over from hers. His features cut a striking figure even in the poor light of the evening. Dark locks and a keen jawbone frame vivid green eyes. He turns towards Catherine as she enters the room, and he cannot have failed to hear the slur that followed her.

“They don’t like me either,” he says, a shadow of some unfathomable emotion passing over his face. His accent is provincial, Liessan, but with an unfamiliar burr to it. “Neither noble nor orphan,” he adds, “my grandfather was a knight.”

He does not mention which retinue. It would be irrelevant. If he is here, then that noble line has long since fallen victim to the Great Game.

Catherine studies him. She has learnt, by now, to distinguish those seeking manipulation rather than alliance. Both can be useful, depending on the situation – and though she has little skill with words, she is learning. She is always learning.

But this does not fit either category. The boy in front of her does not seem to be seeking anything, not with every line of his posture laced with quiet fury and the scars poking past his grey woollen habit. He appears to be quite capable of solo action. But Catherine knows how it feels to be slighted by her own incapacity, knows the bone-deep fury when another takes exception to something as inconsequential as her birth. It is up to her to take the first step.

“I’m Catherine,” she says. “One day, I’m going to break them.”

It is only a statement, and nothing she has not promised herself before, yet it feels like an offered hand.

The boy’s lips twitch into something that is almost a smile.

“I’m William,” he replies. “Someday, I would like to join you in that.” The hand is clasped.

The next morning, the same journeyman spits in her breakfast. Catherine breaks his jaw.

On her return to the Blighted Isle, she makes sure to mention the talented journeyman being wasted in Liesse. William arrives two weeks later.

 

* * *

 

They are told the Praesi are coming the day before she turns eighteen.

Catherine discovers that there is something oddly intimate about being dressed, even if it is with steel.

It begins with the greaves, William kneeling at her feet to tighten the straps. It feels strange, being taller than him. She has spent enough time with him, as ally or opponent, in the pit to gauge his height and reach.

His hands are wreathed with callouses, but his fingers are both clever and meticulous. Anyone who has seen him fight would not be surprised by this. Even now the other journeymen whisper about him. _Questor. Perhaps the finest our generation will produce._

Then the _cuisse_ , the long thigh and lower leg piece with an articulation at the knee. Over her gambeson she dons a mail shirt, then the breastplate; the metal tinting green in the light and betraying the unnatural fires it was forged with. She holds out her arms for him to fit with the vambraces, watching his face crease with concentration. Pauldrons follow, marked only with the winged sword that is the Order’s heraldry. Armguards are adjusted, the gorget clasps tight around her throat, and articulated gauntlets finish the portrait. William hands her a helm, its faceplate styled into a grinning skull.

“Captain,” he says. His eyes are thoughtful and read thus: _We have come a long way, since those barracks in Liesse._

It is true, as William’s reputation as a swordsman grew, Catherine turned herself to other matters. Not everyone enters the Order as an orphan; it is considered the martial dumping ground for the nobility. Dishonoured squires, heirs who were not skilled enough at the Great Game, overlooked scions looking to make a name for themselves: they all enter the Order and relinquish any claim they have on titles.

Some wrap themselves in arrogance, expecting foundlings and base-born to give them their due. They crow of descendance from Queens who brought down angels and Kings who flattened nations. To them, Catherine replies: _and yet you still bleed._

But the others? The disaffected and the lost, the ones with fury in their veins and resolve carved into their bones? To them, Catherine says: _let me help you rise._

“Lieutenant,” she responds. Her eyes are burning with fever-light and read thus: _There is much more to come._

Silence follows, and these children go to war.

 

* * *

 

The Blighted Isle burns.

The outposts off the Isle fall on the first day, watchfires going out, one by one. No casualty roll is published, but everyone knows who was on the roster that week. Catherine counted some of them as friends.

Later that day, her company arrives, levies from Summerholm mixed in with a few Wall Guard. They pass through the Warren to bolster the outer layer of defences. The Blighted Isle is a fortress like no other, because it is in fact many fortresses. Hundreds of self-sufficient bastions, connected by a network of warded tunnels, deep beneath the earth. The Kingdom’s answer to Wasteland scrying.

The Praesi make landfall on the second day and immediately begin assembling their siege engines. Catherine’s company is assigned to defend one of the artillery bastions – a ballista operated by a crew of Order members.  As dusk approaches, the goblins begin firing on the walls, but a company of Questors sallies out and cuts the crews down before retreating to the cover of the walls.

So begins the third day.

They have twenty thousand against the Praesi legions. The full infantry muster of Summerholm and Marchford added to the fighting strength of the Order. It will have to do. For two whole bells the ballista on the walls fire, trying to destroy the opposing engines. They might as well have been trying to bleed a stone.

Catherine has studied Praesi siege tactics, she even sought out diagrams in the library to satisfy her curiosity, and even so she cannot help but feel a flicker of awe as the shields sprang into life. They are called Magewalls, several tons of enchanted timber on wheels, capable of keeping whole cadres safe until they are close enough to the walls to cast. The artillery teams do their best, but with no mages to reinforce the wards there is only one way this can go. One by one, the Callowan engines are silenced by fire and lightning streaking across the sky.

Only then, do the Praesi advance. Lightly-armoured orcs followed by household troops, ladders scattered among them.

“Looks like it’s a genuine push,” William grunts from next to her. “They wouldn’t be committing household troops otherwise.”

“They have to pass through a lily-field, a dyke and another lily-field before they can hit the walls,” says Catherine. “If they didn’t commit heavy infantry, they wouldn’t even get a chance to put those ladders down.”

Her First Lieutenant remains silent. He is not one that feels the need to fill the air with unconsidered words. They watch as the mass of soldiery below them advances.

“I’ll go keep the levies in line,” the dark-haired man finally says. He pats her on the shoulder.

“Stand proud, Catherine.”

“Stand tall,” she replies, echoing the words from time immemorial, tempered by invasion after invasion. Then she turns, and her heart begins to beat like a drum.

The first wave hits the lily-fields and slows as the earth gives way to reveal spiked pits. One woman further down the line raises her crossbow, but William barks an order and she stops.

The second wave reaches the lily-fields just as the first hits the dyke and slows again.

Catherine can feel her heart thrumming under her skin as she forces herself to breathe slowly.

When the third wave reaches the lily-fields, they are concentrated enough. A horn sounds from the command station and up and down the wall cries ring out.

“All ranks.” Catherine roars, her heartbeat thunder in her ears. “Loose.”

The vanguard disintegrates, the mass of bodies flinching as several rows of soldiers vanish to concentrated arrow-fire. A shout echoes from the walls, anger laced with triumph at watching The Enemy fall. But the orcs let loose an answering howl, and the green tide charges.

The horns ring out again. Catherine unsheathes her blade.

_Here they come again._

 

* * *

 

They hold the outer walls for half a bell.

The orcs hurl themselves up the wall, haemorrhaging bodies to the massed ranks of longbows. Then the Praesi crack the warding scheme and a black cloud incinerates most of Catherine’s missile complement. The call goes out and the Callowan skirmishers retreat to the second wall of the bastion; the Praesi ladders find purchase and the bloody work begins. The journeymen of the Order stalk the battlements, shattering any pocket of enemy troops, and the levies hold fast. The air is rent with the sounds of battle. Screams, splintering wood and steel meeting steel. There is no other clamour like it in all of Creation, and part of Catherine revels in it.

 _This,_ she thinks, _is the kind of battle I was born for._ Above her, the sky rent by eastern sorcery; before her, a howling throng of greenskins; behind her, Callowans, screaming defiance with every inch of ground they yield.

She spots another cluster of Praesi, hacking their way through one of her squads. She charges, a shout tearing itself from her throat as she barrels towards an olive-skinned woman. Grey eyes find the skull on her helm and widen.

“Knight,” the Taghreb screams. “Blood Knight!”

Catherine ducks low under a sword and sweeps her blade upwards, scything through flesh. Squaring up behind her shield, she kicks the spasming woman off the wall.

The killing rush fills her, power blazing in her veins, pushing her forward. A grin works its way across her face, bright and feral with the simple joy of purpose.

“ _Burn, Praesi,”_ she snarls and silver fire erupts from her hand. The world goes white, then grey, before vision returns to her. There is nothing left but several warped sets of armour and smoking stone. Catherine stares. She has never conjured that amount of Banefire before.

“Catherine!”

A shout brings her out of her stupor. She looks down and finds William’s gaze.

“Get off the wall!” He screams.

The air tastes of ozone.

There is a supply cart within jumping distance.

She dives.

The walls explode.

 

* * *

 

The inner wall holds for another day before they retreat through the tunnels.

As the Order retreats, they fill the tunnels behind them with liquid fire – the alchemists do their work well. It forces the Praesi to go overground to hit the middle ring, through another crucible of walls, traps and arrow-fire.  Three days pass and the assault grinds to a halt.

Then the Heroes come.

The Archmage shatters the walls like clay and sets the very air aflame. The Radiant Warden storms the main gatehouse alone, scything through troops that have been training since before that woman was born.

The Order changes tack. They cannot hold Blighted Isle, not as mortals against Named in the fullness of their power; but every corpse they leave on the Isle is an easterner that will not make it to Summerholm.

Catherine and William are attached to a group of Questors, the remnants of their company being assigned to the inner ring. She smiles and whispers encouragements to the levies, providing them with what comfort she can. She trades quiet oaths with the Wall Guard still living, they recognise how badly the odds are stacked against them.

That is how she fulfils her first command: all of them are exhausted, many of them are injured, but most of them are alive.

Over the next few days the Questors lead her on raids. Mage cadres fall, supply caches are torched, siege engines break; but the Praesi war machine lumbers on and the main bulk of the army bypasses the last pockets of resistance on the Isle in favour of striking for Callowan heartlands. The Order, she realises, her family, her purpose and her duty, is insufficient _._

That night, she _dreams_.

 

* * *

 

She is woken by the clash of steel. Instincts not entirely her own draw a blade before she can process the scene before her. A young woman clad in burnished plate, skin charcoal-black and wreathed with swirling light.

The Radiant Warden tears through their camp, sword humming with power as it slices straight through armour. The brilliance of her mantle throws the shadows of the cave into sharp contrast, the screams of the dying echoing strangely.

She makes to step forward but a hand clamps around her wrist and wrenches her backwards. She finds the wrinkled, weatherbeaten face of her commanding officer: Blademaster Valerian. He is old for a Questor, at least sixty, and has fought for their homeland for decades.

He has William’s wrist grasped in his other hand.

“You are young,” the white-haired man says. “Do not throw your lives away.”

Catherine opens her mouth to protest that they are all going to die anyway but something gives her pause. She will later decide that though his voice was a thing of iron, it was his eyes that made her listen. A deep soulful gaze at odds with the razor-voiced killer who taught her how to brawl in full plate.

“One strike,” he says. “Make it count.”

 

* * *

 

Deep beneath the earth, a group of Callowans struggle against an ancient foe. They are learned in the ways of battle, but their enemy’s power is great. They are struck down, one by one as they buy time for the greatest among them to act. He is old, and though mighty, his many seasons have worn him down. He knows it is time to pass the mantle on. The mentor imparts one last lesson to his students, before going to meet his death.

This is a Story.

 

* * *

 

“Come Vengeful Ones, let us sing of greater things” Valerian Foundling whispers, and his voice rings with something eldritch.

He gives his companions a light shove, prompting them to peel off, flanking the Named. William to the left, Catherine to the right.

“Of men and Gods, of shattered spears, of honour’s touch and fallen kings.”

The last Questor chokes as a blade punches through his chest and the Radiant Warden pauses. She stands in a ring of corpses, a grisly monument to her power unfolding in bloody petals.

“Strength will wither, senses dull, courage freeze like winter ice.”

The Hero waits, as the Blademaster approaches, eyes full of laughter and veins brimming with power. This is a mistake. Like spellcraft, interrupted curses have a tendency to backfire dramatically on their wielder. But she is young, fresh to her Name and has never fought a Villain.

The Game of Gods is not forgiving, even for Heroes.

Their blades clash. Once, twice and the third exchange finds goblin steel buried in the veteran’s belly. It does not stop him.

“I recall debts, O Heavens’ Bane, and call on her the longest price.”

His sword, blessed with salt and blood, shatters and decades worth of dues are repaid.

For a single frozen moment, all the light in the room is swallowed, snuffed out like candle. Then the darkness writhes like a living thing a woman’s scream pierces the gloom.

They are already moving.

The Praesi spots Catherine first and makes a short, sharp gesture. Her amber eyes widen when no power comes forth. A growl escapes the woman’s lips and she twists, planting her shield in the dirt, withdrawing her blade in preparation.

William takes her sword arm.

The Warden gapes at the stump, but her lips already moving as her mantle reasserts itself.

“ **Withsta-** ”

Catherine takes her head.

There is a detonation of Light.

 

* * *

 

Two children stand over the cooling corpse of a Hero, the bodies of their comrades scattered across the ground.

Something greater than words can ever convey crystallises in the silence between them.

 

* * *

 

The boy examines his blade. It was his grandfather’s originally, a hand-and-a-half sword that slew foes from Vales to Fields. It was consecrated, just as Catherine’s had been before it was left a molten ruin. Yet why would his be left unmarred by the Warden’s death?

It comes unbidden.

 _Hours spent drilling under the midday sun. Yet more hours spent under moonlight with no instructor. There is so much more they need to accomplish, and he_ will not _slow Catherine down._

The Fell Swordsman exhales, letting confusion give way to resolve and goes to search for his scabbard.

  
 

* * *

 

The girl stares at the corpse. The Hero looks smaller in death. No longer a titan amongst mortals but the shell of a young woman barely older than herself. The sounds of battle have died and Heavenly Light no longer emanates from the Soninke’s body. The soft foxfire of wall’s fungi casts the room in a spectral aspect and Creation seems a step removed from her thoughts.

A day ago, she was Catherine Foundling, daughter of no one, heir to nothing but salted steel and a duty of defiance. For Catherine Foundling, that had been enough.

The Squire was uninterested in those false ambitions. She had clung to the cause but not made it her own; she had gathered lost souls behind her but not raised a banner; she had seen thousands die in the defence of her homeland and she _could not save them_.

As silver flames consume the body in front of her, the Squire finds her purpose.

She would have Callow stand together and she would have it stand tall.

_Whether the foe be gods or kings or all the armies in Creation._

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my contribution to the Fan Intermission while EE takes his well deserved break.
> 
> Shoutout to all those wonderful people on the PGtE Discord who organised the whole thing.
> 
> A special shoutout to Marthe from the same place who fixed my numerous punctuation errors.


End file.
